Research & Insight
For businesses looking to understand their markets better
Focused marketing requires a thorough understanding of your business, customers and competitive environment.
You need evidence, rigorous analysis and clear insight to guide and inspire your strategic decision-making.
I can help generate actionable insights for you using a range of qualitative and quantitative research methods, including face-to-face and telephone interviews, online surveys and focus groups; as well as desk research.
EXPLORE
When you want help to:
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Assess new and existing markets and evaluate their size and potential.
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Detect market trends for you to exploit.
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Determine customer satisfaction, perceptions, reactions and behaviours.
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Reveal what customers think of your planned new business, products or services.
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Benchmark your organisation against your competitors.
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Evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing.
Research & Insight Services
Interviews with media editors to develop insight to assist a PR company creating a media strategy for a US software firm wishing to boost its UK presence.
June 23, 2015Hotel loyalty scheme market review for a creative firm’s successful pitch to a global hotel group.
June 23, 2015Location study for an Australasian airline establishing a new European reservations centre.
June 23, 2015UK public house market review for a global bank considering funding an MBO.
June 22, 2015Understanding the market landscape is fundamental when making strategic decisions. A market review will help with the development of your business and marketing strategy by providing valuable insights. It’ll uncover the implications for your business of:
- Industry structure and trends.
- Market segments, size and key growth areas.
- Customer segment profiles, trends, demand drivers and buyer behaviour.
- Service and product differentiation.
- Competitors, market shares and positioning.
A market review can be particularly useful when you are considering expanding into new markets and want to evaluate their attractiveness for investment.
I can help you with reviews of both UK and overseas markets.
TELL ME MOREResearch of staff’s views on a care home group’s recruitment marketing.
July 14, 2015Training sessions, customer research, marketing strategy, including brand extension, for a frozen yogurt business.
July 14, 2015Research of various audiences (including parents, former pupils, universities and local businesses) for one of the UK’s largest independent schools to help inform its strategy.
June 23, 2015Customer research, followed by marketing and sales growth planning, for a post-administration UK waste management business.
June 23, 2015Customer insight will help you understand your customers better. By understanding what your customers like and want, what their perceptions and attitudes are, how they feel, how satisfied they are, and how they behave, you will meet their needs more effectively and be better placed to anticipate future demand.
A customer insight exercise typically involves understanding your research objectives, compiling a relevant sample of customers, designing questionnaires, collating and analysing responses, then producing a report which summarises the key findings and presents conclusions and recommendations. Online survey tools are frequently used, enabling the research to be undertaken cost-effectively for you.
TELL ME MOREThe client review programme is a key account research and business development service designed specifically for business-to-business and professional services firms.
- How do your clients value your services?
- Would they buy more from you?
- Would they recommend you to others?
- What are their plans for the year ahead and how these will affect your business with them?
- What does all of this mean for your firm’s marketing and business development?
Understanding clients, and developing and maintaining strong relationships with them, is at the heart of marketing any professional services and business-to-business firm. Only with an in-depth knowledge of clients’ perceptions and satisfaction levels, changing needs and buying patterns can an effective marketing and business development strategy be put in place. A systematic approach will help extract and scrutinise this information in a consistent, professional manner across the organisation.
The client review programme combines consultative business development with traditional client research methods, resulting in considerable benefits for your organisation. It can also just as easily be used for discussions with prospective clients, as well as with intermediaries who may refer work to your business.
The programme will help you:
- Undertake meaningful, proactive business development that helps protect and strengthen your relationships with clients and demonstrates that you value their perspective.
- Gather useful, relevant intelligence and insight on which to base and focus your marketing, business development and service delivery strategies.
- Explore opportunities to retain business, cross sell and win new work.
Your clients will also benefit from having professionals better briefed to deliver the right services to them at the right time and in the way they want.
TELL ME MOREMarket due diligence assists venture capitalists, business angels, banks, accountancy firms and acquisitive businesses by providing valuable, unbiased insight and foresight on market and strategic issues at each stage of the investment lifecycle:
- Initial investment: to aid investment decisions.
- Investment management: renewal planning or divestment decisions.
- Investment realisation: exit planning.
Market due diligence is an efficient way of assessing a target company’s likely performance. Complementing other forms of due diligence (financial, legal and management team), it addresses two key questions which will determine the company’s commercial prospects, and therefore return to shareholders:
- What are the prospects for the target company’s markets?
- What is the target company’s competitive position and prospects within these markets?
The market due diligence process typically involves assessing the competitive landscape and industry dynamics, the business’s positioning, strengths and weaknesses, product and service portfolios and lifecycles, marketing strategy, sales forecasts and user projections, customer requirements, relationships and risk, supplier relationships and risk, and market prospects.
Essentially it provides information to evaluate the investment, highlighting any key issues to support or oppose it.
TELL ME MOREA marketing audit is a comprehensive review of how you currently market your business. It will take stock of your marketing to identify any areas for improvement by:
- Appraising your past and present marketing activity.
- Considering internal and external influences.
- Auditing your brand.
- Appraising your existing plans.
- Reviewing your marketing metrics.
- Highlighting any areas of concern that should be addressed.
- Identifying areas where marketing budget can be saved or diverted for better return.
- Providing you with action points to work on.
- Developing a proposal to resolve any issues.
I will produce a high level report for you that will form the basis for evaluating future courses of action.
TELL ME MORE- “The audience research and business development work carried out by David for our organisation was instrumental in creating a platform for developing new business through well researched stakeholder analysis, identification of our strengths and building confidence in our ability to rise to the challenges ahead. We have since won contracts, secured 5 year funding for innovative work and are engaged in ground breaking work in a rural area. David was a pleasure to work with.”
Isobel Lawson
Chief Executive Officer (not for profit) -
“We worked with David to devise and implement our client review programme over the past two years. The programme was very successful and well received at all levels. It provided and continues to provide important and relevant insights into our clients’ expectations and the programme has now become part of how we do business. We had comments like ‘brilliant’ and ‘tremendous’ from hard to impress partners.”
Ann Goodger
Business Development Director (property consulting) -
“Right from the off David was extremely well briefed and engaged with the specification and project needs. He came to the inception meeting with highly perceptive questions and well-thought out ideas which improved the precision and refined the scope of the research. His experience in conducting this type of research clearly shone through and was greatly beneficial. He brought an extremely thorough approach that was enthusiastic but also measured and reflective. The presentation of the findings was a perfect blend of insightful, clear and concise analysis. It has proved very useful to our ongoing work and development.”
Project Leader (sustainable transport)